Permission to Hate in Canada

Abstract

This chapter highlights the social, cultural and political landscape in which organized hate groups emerge in Canada. Here, our focus is on the social contexts that enable such groups to flourish. We first lay out the theoretical frame to understand how broader social, cultural and political patterns render “permission to hate” in Canada. We consider the environmental factors that we identified, during our fieldwork, as particularly important in facilitating right-wing extremism (RWE) in Canada. In contrast, we end by drawing attention to those countervailing environmental patterns and processes that might constrain groups from emerging and/or engaging in extremist violence.